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Technical References - [format]

To apply formats for Dates or Times other than the current date and time, use [format]

Format is used for text and numbers. Format will also apply formatting to dates and times provided they are converted to numbers first. To convert a date or time into a number, enclose them with curly braces, and wrap them in a [math] context. This will convert dates into number of days since 00/00/0000, and times into number of seconds since midnight. And then they can be wrapped in a format context for custom formatting.

To convert to a number:

[math]{08/14/2008}[/math] --> 733633
[math]{10:12:07}[/math] --> 36727

Now we can apply formatting using Days_To_Date, and formatting specifiers:

1. [Format Days_To_Date %m/%d/%y][math]{08/14/2008}[/math][/format]
2. [format Days_To_Date %A, %B %d, %Y][math]{08/14/2008}[/math][/Format]
3. [format Days_To_Date %A, %B %d, %Y]733633[/format]
4. [format Days_To_Date]733633[/Format]
5. [format Seconds_To_Time %I:%M:%S %p][math]{10:12:07}[/math][/format]
6. [format Seconds_To_Time %I:%M:%S %p]36727[/format]

Results would be:

1. 08/14/08
2. Thursday, August 14, 2008
3. Thursday, August 14, 2008
4. 08/14/2008
5. 10:12:07 AM
6. 10:12:07 AM

Note that the [date] formats are the same, but work specifically on the [date] tag, which resolves to the current date only. If you are retrieving dates from a database, use Format as above.

TIP
The %d designator returns a 2 digit date (August 05, 2008), but for single digit dates, this looks bad. There's a workaround. Separate the components, and wrap the %d piece in [math] tags, and it will get rid of the leading zero.

[math][format days_to_date %d][math]{[date]}[/math][/format][/math]

Another way would be using grep:

[grep search= 0&replace= ]
[format Days_To_Date %A, %B %d, %Y][math]{[date]}[/math][/format]
[/grep]

[format FormatSpec]Text or Number[/Format]
Formats text or numbers in various widths or currency formats.
To display numbers with various decimal points or currency formats, surround the number or text with a [format] context.

Numeric formatting works with comma separators for decimal point (non-US style, such as [format 6,2f][math]39/7[/math][/format] yields 7,46 instead of 7.46)

Example:

[format 10.2f]99.5[/Format] (f stands for floating-point number)
[format 10s]Hello[/format] (s stands for string of text)
[format Days_To_Date %m/%d/%y]195462[/format]
[format Seconds_To_Time]49768[/format]
[format Seconds_To_Time %I:%M:%S %p]49768[/format]
[format thousands 14.2f]394363210[/format]
[format thousands 14,2f]394363210[/format]
[format thousands .3d]7[/Format] (d stands for decimal number)

The number displays right-justified with enough preceding spaces and digits after the decimal point to fill the exact width of the format specifier. Text is left-justified, with enough spaces after it to exactly fill the width specifier.

|     99.50| (10 wide, 2 after the decimal)
|Hello     | (10 wide, text)
|04/07/1997| (#days as a date)
|13:49:28|
|01:49:28 PM| 
|394,363,201.00| (14 wide, number with thousands separator)
|394.363.201,00| (14 wide, number with European thousands separator)
|007| (3 wide, integer part of number only, zeroes preceding)

Given a number 345.67, the following format specifiers will display as shown:

8.3f = | 345.670| (f stands for floating point)
8.2f = |  345.67|
8.1f = |   345.7| (notice rounding from .67 to .7)
8.0f = |     346| (notice rounding from .67 to next higher integer)
 .5d = |00345| (notice no rounding, and preceding 0s to fill 5 digits)

Optional date format -- to format a number as a date (the number must represent the number of days since Midnight, January 1st, 0000), use the optional date specifier and a date format, the same as from the [date] tag. Also see date and time [math].

It is always advised to [format] your math operations as WebDNA is working on a deep fractional part of the number, rounded by the server processor, which can sometimes yield strange results: instead of getting a "0", you might obtain a 0.0000000000000001

To specify the precision of a number, we must use like [format .2f][math]25*34.567[/math][/format]. From version 8.6, you can use [math .2f]25*34.567[/math]

WebDNA Team

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Technical References - [format]

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